Below Huzu asked brands and agencies from the Social Media World Forum March just gone ‘Why Are some brands still reluctant to put spend into Social Media Marketing?’

The Brands’ Perspective

Huzu is a social media technology company. Licensing its white-label social media platform to brands and agencies. Allowing them to provide their customers with an engaging community and reducing the cost of building the technology in – house. The platform is flexible and can be customised for each brand, with functionality that includes profiles, forums, video, blogs, picture galleries, friends network, calendars, instant chat, plus Facebook share and connect, amongst others. Designed with easy-to-use administration and content management tools, Huzu also benefits from fully controllable ad space. TUI, Eircom, Racing UK and Durex have built successful communities using the Huzu social media platform.

Social Media World Forum Asia is back for 2010!  The event  will be taking place at the larger venue – The Suntec Conference Centre on the 22nd & 23rd of September 2010, before the F1 Singapore night race, allowing people to stay over the weekend and visit the race, and enjoy the parties

New look website launched

The team have been working hard over the last few weeks and have just launched our new look website www.socialmedia-forum.com/asia

The website has a vibrant new look, new content, significant updates and features to provide a more engaging and interactive platform for event attendees to network and connect before and after events.

So who is going to be speaking?

Some of the speakers already confirmed include:

•             Blake Chandlee, VP & Commercial Director, EMEA, Facebook
•             Lito S German, Marketing Director, BMW
•             Jeremy Khoo, Deputy Director, Marketing Communication and loyalty, NTUC Fairprice
•             Derek Yeo, Head of Corporate Marketing & Ancillary Finance, Tiger Aviation
•             Argha Sen, Head of Marketing & CRM, Toys R Us (more…)

Joe Hughes, Research & Insight Manager,Yomego

A large brand said to us recently that it wasn’t considering a social media strategy, because if you “get the product right, the rest will take of itself”. It was taking a ‘trust to luck’ approach, relying on spontaneous word of mouth recommendations to drive users of its product.

In one way, it has a valid point. If a product is good enough, people will recommend and promote it to each other – whether they talk about it online or offline. Equally, if the product isn’t up to scratch, no-one will buy.

But social media isn’t just about one-way promotion. The scope for customer engagement, and actively building reach, positive reputation and loyalty is huge. Social media is driving customers to consume more offline. (more…)

Over a week ago since the event and the team are starting to catch their breath!

All delegates will have now received an email containing login details to access all the event presentations.

Courtesy of our exhibitor John Cassidy Photography, we have a selection of event photos ready to view here

http://www.johncassidyphoto.co.uk/clientgallery.php?z=smwf18854z

If you would like copies of any of the photos, please contact John directly at johncassidyphoto (@ ) mac.com

The Six Degrees team have just about recovered from the Social Media World Forum #SMWF last week. We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came along, tweeted, networked and blogged.

Social Media World Forum 2010 video – can you spot yourself?

During the two days a lot of issues and topics were covered! below are some blog posts with some good overviews.

•    Viralblog Part 1 – http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/social-media-world-forum-part-i/
•    Viralblog Part 2 – http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/social-media-world-forum-part-ii/
•    Viralblog Part 3 – http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/social-media-world-forum-part-iii/

•    Top 5 trending and hot topics at #smwf 2010 – http://ow.ly/1nCpn

•   77Agency Roundup- http://lab.77agency.com/news/roundup-of-the-social-media-world-forum-in-london-5466/

With the attendance doubling from last year, our exhibition grew considerable and generally a lot more going on this year including some very popular workshops!

We would also like to say a big thank you to all the event sponsors & exhibitors (http://tinyurl.com/yj85h9x)
So what are we planning for 2011 we hear you ask? The team are putting their heads together to coming up with some buzzing exciting ideas for next year show, watch this space…
We are always looking for feedback and suggestions for next year…so if you have any recommendations, ideas or just comments please drop us a line and let us know!

Hilton London Olympia – 380 Kensington High Street London W14 8NL, United Kingdom

We are pleased to have partnered with The Hilton London Olympia Hotel to offer all Social Media World Forum visitors a discounted room rate for the 14th, 15th & 16th March 2010.

We only have a limited number of rooms reserved, so we do recommend making your reservation soon!

Room Rates:

Hilton Guest Double/Twin

Single occupancy          £105.00 per room excluding VAT & English Breakfast

Double Occupancy        £115.00 per room excluding VAT & English Breakfast

To Book:

To take advantage of the above discounted room rates simply contact  Julie Allen on +44 (0) 207 856 1902 or email Julie.allen (@) hilton.com and quote ASNE.

If you do not quote this promotional code at the time of booking your will not receive the event hotel rate.

The Hilton London Olympia hotel is on the bustling Kensington High Street, 2 minutes’ walk from Olympia Exhibition Centre with Heathrow Airport just 14 miles away.  The hotel has many facilities – contemporary Plum Grill, socialize at Plum Bar or watch the match at Plum Sports Lounge.

The Hilton will also host the events pre networking get2gether on the evening of the 14th March within the Plum Bar.

New for 2010, we have introduced a Bloggers Pass for the event.   Bloggers Passes are available for New Media/Social Media bloggers looking to cover the show and become a Blogger Supporter for the event.

All bloggers passes will include the below:

• Access to all five conference streams over the two days – Social Media, Social TV, Mobile Social Media, Enterprise Social Media, and Cloud Computing
• Full access to the conference exhibition
• Access to the bloggers lounge
• Invite to the evening networking party
• Free WiFi

Bloggers Passes are limited and to receive a pass we ask the below in return:

• Display of an event banner/Blogger Supporter badge on your main website
• Post at least two blogs pre show about the event

Once your blog has been published and your supporter’s button is live, please email eva (@) sixdegs.com.  Once received you will receive your Bloggers Pass invite.

For full event details visit www.socialmedia-forum.com

*Subject to organisers approval

Penny Power, Author, International Speaker, Entrepreneur and founder of Ecademy talks about the role of social networks for modern professionals. Penny Power is a published author, a highly engaging speaker and one of the UK’s most inspirational and successful female entrepreneurs. Penny founded Ecademy, the UK’s first social network for business, in 1998 at the age of 33 with her husband Thomas Power.

Penny will be speaking and chairing at the Social Media World Forum event taking place at Olympia, London in March.

How important is understanding social media for modern professionals?

I often think about how executives feel about all the noise going on in the world of social media. The desire to see it as a fad, or as something not relevant to their business must be very strong for some. Many will say, and I have heard it said “oh, that is something my kids waste time doing, I am a busy person, I don’t have time for that stuff”. I wonder if I might have felt that if I had stayed in the old world 12 years ago. (more…)

To be in for a chance to attend the “Must attend” Social Media event of the year FREE, simply take part in our Re-Tweet competition!

It’s Really Easy to Enter

All you need to do is put your Social Media skills to the test and re-tweet our competition tweet on your twitter. Just make sure your tweet contains our Twitter name (@SocialNetworkWF so we can track you as a contestant) and link to this blog post

Tweet – “I am tweeting to win a free pass to the Social Media World Forum #SMWF @socialnetworkWF, http://bit.ly/59jsf1”

Click here to enter on Twitter

The winner will be selected at random from everybody who sent a tweet following the above instructions.   The winner will be notified by DM, so make sure you follow us @SocialNetworkWF That’s all you have to do!

(more…)